Live Call in number: 1-818-602-4929September 20, 2011 Tonight live at 8PM PT: Tonight on Gadfly Radio, Ben Boychuk of CA City Journaljoins me as we talk with John Seiler of CalWatchDog.com, Angelo M. Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, Senior Fellow with The Clarmont Institute and author most recently of “The Ruling Class” and “Advice to War Presidents.” Tom Donalson is the President of America’s PAC and America’s Majority. He works to carry on the work compiled by the late Richard Nadler, a contributor to American Spectator and NRO as well as the founder and President of America’s Majority up until his passing in May of 2009.

Why have Latino voters abandoned the Republican Party in CA in such dramatic numbers? The GOP cannot win and has no future in CA unless it wins over a significant number of Latino voters. What is the problem? What is the solution? Does it matter?

Our program focuses mainly on CA politics, policy, business and jobs. This past weekend, the CA GOP had its fall convention in the heart of Los Angeles, in a redevelopment zone called LA Live. Ron Paul stole the thunder in the Presidential Straw Poll, and Michelle Bachmann fared worse than Perry and Romney in the same poll even though she was the keynote speaker on Friday night at the Convention.

The State of CA is close to being fully dominated by the Democratic Party. Republicans cling to a thread of power but have to fight the redisticting maps to hold on. Their numbers of support among Latinos is at an all time low.

Juliet Williams reported in the Washington Examiner:

GOP registration has been sliding for years, with Republicans now accounting for 31 percent of registered voters, compared to 44 percent for Democrats and about 20 percent for independents.Any strategy to revive that registration cannot succeed without persuading Hispanics, who comprise a third of the California electorate. Click here to read more.

Among California Latinos who registered between the 2002 and 2006 midterm elections, 23% were Republican, 50% were Democrats and 23% declined to state. More recently, GOP affiliation among Latinos has begun to slip. For those who registered since the 2006 midterm vote, only 16% are Republicans, 56% are Democrats and 24% declined to state an affiliation. For non-Latino voters, the figures are 24% Republican, 44% Democrat and 26% independent since 2006.

Perhaps the most ridiculous sentence ever written on immigration from the right: Were Americans once again to take citizenship seriously, to dismantle the welfare state’s bureaucratic and psychological culture of entitlement, to dismiss the image of themselves as white-gloved administrators, and to banish America’s drug culture, then Americans could safely stop worrying about our southern border. Yeah, and if there were less gravity we’d all run faster.

Mark Krikorian writes that my article “Our Borders, Ourselves” “attempt[s] to undermine opposition” to one of our ruling class’s “most important tools,” namely “mass migration.” He charges that I want to “allow our nation to be crucified on the cross of unlimited immigration” and accuses me of “contempt for the actual people living in the actual United States of America who, whatever our manifold sins, would like to preserve whatever’s left of our country.”

I recently met a young man, in his early thirties, thin and tan and sporting aviator sunglasses with mirrored lenses. He kept his hope alive by the encounters with people who bartered with him honestly, despite the many who cheat him of his pay for a hard day’s, week’s and even several weeks’ work. He is an ‘llegal.’ He likes to read and write and study history in his spare time. He sends money home to put his two sister through college and help his mother in the Central American Country he comes from.

He showed me a book he carries in his backpack, a tattered paperback called “Como Ganar Amigos E Influir Sobre las Personas” in Spanish. We know it in English as “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. He recommended it to me. Said he knew he could be somebody someday.

I know that book. I’ve read it before. It’s from one of our legendary U.S. Capitalists. It’s a primer in Capitalism. You start with the customer is always right. You have something to offer, to sell. How are you communicating your message to your customers?

We are in the business of ideas. Our marketplace is broad and diverse. Our fundamentals are fundamental and shape our success or our failure.

Codevilla closed his article back in 2009 with this statement: “How Russians or Chinese or Indonesians feel about Americans, or how we feel about them, makes little difference simply because such peoples are neither neighbors nor relatives. But because Mexicans are at once close neighbors and relatives, our sentiments toward them and theirs toward us are of the greatest importance. When we make enemies of Mexicans, we foul our own nest.”

Agree or disagree, hope you join us for the conversation.

We’ll take your calls, questions and comments on the air at 1-818-602-4929.

I am a stand for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives.

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It’s a pleasure to share this program with CalWatchDog’s team of government policy watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!

Tuesday nights live, on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California, the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.

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A more moderate platform than the 2008 version was introduced at the convention by a drafting committee and caused much heated discussion before it was derailed temporarily in committee. The vote was close: 60-55. The battle on the platform is not over. The platform will be finalized next year…” (I disagree with the author that the straw poll which Ron Paul won will soon be forgotten. I do agree with Joel Fox, the author, that that is what supporters of a candidate who scored way behind in such poll would say.) Click to read the article.

Interesting read. I’m a skeptic, and have been so utterly disappointed in the Republican Party for all the reasons stated by DelBeccaro, Hector Barajas, University of California, Berkeley student Francisco Loayza, 20, treasurer of the Berkeley College Republicans group, in this article. And I agree with “Selena Sanchez, 27. The preschool teacher from Riverside came to the convention Saturday to support [Ron] Paul,…”

I believe Barajas is authentic in what he says he’s committed to accomplishing. I hope those whom he says are going to stay the course and support an on going program to court and recruit Latinos really do intend to continue their efforts and focus beyond the next election cycle, this time. May be they really really really mean it this time, about building a base of support among Hispanics in CA. It would mean building on core principles that make possible, a coalition big enough to stand up to the ruling class of public employee unions, big business and the politicians who serve them, and curry them favor at everyone’s expense.

Is the CA GOP going to respond to the concern and issue with Immigration Francisco Loayza articulates in the article, about compassion, and reform of the process for legal immigration status? Or does the GOP in CA intend to go around that issue and address other issues that are critical to Latinos? Education? Small Business issues–regulations, red tape, taxes? I heard public safety? Good. Will they stand up to the teachers’ union to support the parents who want their children to get a real shot at an education? Will they stand with the people of Fullerton, and other citizens from all around Orange County and Los Angeles County who are riveted around the case of Kelly Thomas, the Fullerton six, the Chief of Police, the three City Council members who are going face a recall, and the DA who has yet to make any statement other than that there is an investigation? Law enforcement is at a crossroads in CA. For Hispanics, it means a lot of people in prisons, and it’s vital that the public trust the integrity of our State’s law enforcement establishment.

The Spin Cycle with Carla Marinucci, SF Chronicle: It’s going to get hotter in Los Angeles next month now that Republican Rep. Ron Paul will be joining Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann at the upcoming gathering of the nation’s largest Republican Party — the California state GOP convention in Los Angeles starting Sept. 18.

The campaign of the Texas Congressman, who came in a close second to Bachmann in the recent Iowa straw poll, confirmed to us today he’s hitting California to address the convention on Saturday. Paul is planning to be present all day at the gathering — expected to draw at least 1,000 GOP enthusiasts to the JW Marriott at LA Live.

As we reported this week, more GOP candidates might be showing up to the blue state convention now that Bachmann is the Friday keynote speaker — and the party has decided to hold a straw poll that could juice up interest and passions among grassroots activists and the media in the nation’s most populous state.

OH, this just perked up my whole disposition about the upcoming CA GOP Convention in L.A. in September. Suddenly I am excited about it, for more than the pleasure to see kindred spirits whom I’ve met years past. Since 1999, I would never miss a convention in CA, until a year ago. Then, disenchanted, I surmised that the CA GOP Party Leadership did not stand with principles of liberty but in spurts, and whim.

Too many jockeyed for power opposite Democrats and both Parties’ Leaders divvied the goods over which they had control. Both Parties curry favor to secure the endorsements of the public Employee Unions–CTA, AFT, SEIU, Prison Guards Union and bow to them before the public whom votes for them into office. Many, not all, county and city law enforcement agencies, and Redevelopment Big Developers and their League of Cities minions on City Councils across the land of CA partake in this public orgy of power and money grabbing, the people, entrepreneurs, small business owners all be damned.

There are many who’ve chosen not to flee California, but who want to transform CA to a place where there is more liberty, less tyranny for the people. They believe that Real change is possible. They know there is no guarantee, but we will stand up!

More and more awaken and engage. They speak up against corruption, abuse of power and the public trust. They collaborate and they coalesce. Many of these same inspired and determined activists are also inspired by ideas that Ron Paul articulates consistently.

The most contentious issues that stand between conservatives and libertarians right now, with respect to Ron Paul are all the wars, the war on drugs, and the Federal Reserve. These are substantive issues and he discusses them with moral and ethical authority, reason and integrity. Let both he and Ms Bachman do so in a debate.

The CA GOP convention just happened this past weekend and we’ll distill the significance of it for you!

We’ll talk about the latest on PG&E and Nuclear Power in CA, and CA AB32, the Calif. cap-and-trade plan suffers a legal setback, and what that means to the taxpayers and everyone who pays for gas, food, energy and has a job or wants one in California.

My mission for this radio program is (and I quote here the mission statement of The Future of Freedom Foundation, with whom I have no affiliation other than that I agree with their stated mission, by which I am inspired and for which I stand, to the best of my ability), “to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government.”

It’s my privilege to share this program with CalWatchDog’s team of government watch dogs!

Join us Tuesday nights, on Gadfly Radio live in Southern California or where ever you are. No matter how bad things are, California is a land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, if we can manage to get it right. Join us.

California Republicans love to talk about limiting government, fighting bureaucracy and keeping taxes low, but on Thursday they proved that this is nothing more than a rhetorical device. Given the opportunity to rein in the size and power of government in a tangible way, Assembly Republicans – with one sole exception – punted. They rallied to save some of the most abusive and wastrel government agencies around.

As the California GOP begins its convention in Sacramento today, party members ought to at least understand where its Assembly members stand – on the side of big government, higher taxes and uncontrolled debt and against property rights, individualism and freedom. As the party blathers about luring minority and working-class voters, let it be clear that the GOP sided with the developers and government planners who want to drive minorities and working-class people off of their property. The Democrats are right: The GOP is the party of big business and privilege.

As part of the governor’s budget package, the Assembly voted on SB77, which would have ended the state’s redevelopment agencies. But only longtime redevelopment foe, Chris Norby of Fullerton, sided with taxpayers and property owners. The rest of the Assembly Republicans voted “no” or didn’t vote at all. Had even one of the Republicans joined Norby, the bill would have passed with a two-thirds majority. There may still be time, but the GOP is too busy celebrating that it stopped Brown on this one issue. They put partisanship above their own ideology. They stopped Brown in one of the few areas where Brown was right.Click here to read more.

Dear Richard, I thank you for calling out the GOP on their anti-Hispanic vitriol. It has become absurd how offensive and off-putting the political discourse around immigration has grown. Those most responsible engage in the tactic of dissembling and fallacy. They accuse anyone who calls them on the not-so-subtle message of outright contempt for Hispanic Immigrants as being FOR OPEN BORDERS! Elaborating on their fallacies, they justify their rancor with the qualifier: “Oh, but we don’t mind if you’re LEGAL. We just don’t want to allow ANY more immigration reform until the border is COMPLETELY SECURE, NO ONE is getting in here illegally…” You cheer at raids, ignoring the horror of the Elian Gonzalez episode in Florida and the fact it cost Gore the Presidency!

To hell with the agriculture industry in California! While we cry about all the lost jobs and the Jabba the Hut Government of California, our backbone industry in California, yes, the biggest industry of California, withers. The Republicans are responsible for killing it. They have eaten their own. It is barely alive. It is on life support. And it is the reddest of red zones in CA. For every illegal farm worker, four white collar jobs are supported. The marketing, sales, distribution, crop dusting, irrigation engineering and more, all dependent on the farmers being able to harvest their crops. We could help them secure the labor they need legally and realistically.

We could have taken out the congressional representatives and Barbara Boxer, who have been aiding the Obama administration kill the Central Valley, and our greatest economic industry in California, and maybe we could have rattled the Leftist controlled California Legislature that is doing to the Central Valley what Saddam Husein did the resistors who tried to escape persecution by hiding in the Arab marches, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet.

Withstanding the fallacy that if one is for comprehensive reform that addresses the broken legal process of getting work permits and visas and yes, even legal citizenship, I would welcome, as would the majority of citizens who support rational comprehensive immigration reform, that in addition to the issues you suggest we pursue by ballot initiative by conservatives who want to advance limited government, that we add an initiative to require that we show legal valid I.D. to vote, that registration rolls be validated on a timely basis, and especially, that provisional ballots require a valid I.D.

All of this can be successfully argued for justly and courteously to all Californians, including our large Hispanic immigrant population, without offending their illegal friends, family and neighbors, in the name of honoring the integrity of every individual’s right to vote.

Mexico requires a valid I.D. It’s not a debated issue in Mexico. It’s common sense. The racial identity politicians who argue that it is racist to require ID play on White Guilt when they suggest it’s racist to require.

The secret to success in arguing for something that limits the power of government and protects our individual liberty and our vote to secure it is simple. Be nice. Be courteous, be inclusive and avoid castings aspersions at ethnic groups. Qualifiers about referring to illegal versus legal Hispanics do not fly. Click here to read more of Richard’s op-ed.

By Richard RiderChairman of the San Diego Tax FightersWed, November 17th, 2010

Be it real or be it perception, the GOP’s perceived anti-immigrant (and especially anti-Hispanic) stance is losing (has lost) the minority vote in this state. The vociferous conservative element that puts essentially all blame for our problems on illegal immigrants projects itself as the GOP.

Some of the most popular right wing talk show hosts build their loyal (essentially all white) following with their Jihad against illegal Hispanics (mainly Mexicans).

Say what you will — this is PERCEIVED as anti-Hispanic. ALL Hispanics. Click here to read more of Richard’s op-ed.Dear Richard, I thank you for calling out the GOP on their anti-Hispanic vitriol. It has become absurd how offensive and off-putting the political discourse around immigration has grown. Those most responsible engage in the tactic of dissembling and fallacy. They accuse anyone who calls them on the not-so-subtle message of outright contempt for Hispanic Immigrants as being FOR OPEN BORDERS! Elaborating on their fallacies, they justify their rancor with the qualifier: “Oh, but we don’t mind if you’re LEGAL. We just don’t want to allow ANY more immigration reform until the border is COMPLETELY SECURE, NO ONE is getting in here illegally…” You cheer at raids, ignoring the horror of the Elian Gonzalez episode in Florida and the fact it cost Gore the Presidency!

To hell with the agriculture industry in California! While we cry about all the lost jobs and the Jabba the Hut Government of California, our backbone industry in California, yes, the biggest industry of California, withers. The Republicans are responsible for killing it. They have eaten their own. It is barely alive. It is on life support. And it is the reddest of red zones in CA. For every illegal farm worker, four white collar jobs are supported. The marketing, sales, distribution, crop dusting, irrigation engineering and more, all dependent on the farmers being able to harvest their crops. We could help them secure the labor they need legally and realistically.

We could have taken out the congressional representatives and Barbara Boxer, who have been aiding the Obama administration kill the Central Valley, and our greatest economic industry in California, and maybe we could have rattled the Leftist controlled California Legislature that is doing to the Central Valley what Saddam Husein did the resistors who tried to escape persecution by hiding in the Arab marches, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet.

Withstanding the fallacy that if one is for comprehensive reform that addresses the broken legal process of getting work permits and visas and yes, even legal citizenship, I would welcome, as would the majority of citizens who support rational comprehensive immigration reform, that in addition to the issues you suggest we pursue by ballot initiative by conservatives who want to advance limited government, that we add an initiative to require that we show legal valid I.D. to vote, that registration rolls be validated on a timely basis, and especially, that provisional ballots require a valid I.D.

All of this can be successfully argued for justly and courteously to all Californians, including our large Hispanic immigrant population, without offending their illegal friends, family and neighbors, in the name of honoring the integrity of every individual’s right to vote.

Mexico requires a valid I.D. It’s not a debated issue in Mexico. It’s common sense. The racial identity politicians who argue that it is racist to require ID play on White Guilt when they suggest it’s racist to require.

The secret to success in arguing for something that limits the power of government and protects our individual liberty and our vote to secure it is simple. Be nice. Be courteous, be inclusive and avoid castings aspersions at ethnic groups. Qualifiers about referring to illegal versus legal Hispanics do not fly. Click here to read more of Richard’s op-ed.

And it appears there is little sign of any large or significant aspect of epiphany. All the same, I believe and so, I cannot resign into cynicism. Hope you read it and move into a positive course of action.

Republicans have been amused by President Barack Obama’s thick-headed response to the Democratic Party’s electoral defeat. Despite near-historic gains for the GOP in the House of Representatives and significant GOP gains in the Senate and statehouses, Obama refused in his news conference Wednesday to pin the blame on his agenda, instead pointing to economic frustrations and a failure by his administration to adequately explain his policies.

Despite the president’s delusion, Democrats would be wise to engage in some soul-searching if they hope to reconnect with the public.

Republicans in California need to do some soul-searching of their own as they find themselves in a much deeper hole than the Obamaites. The Democrats eventually will regain some steam across the country, but Tuesday’s drubbing of the GOP in California suggests the state party might now be an irrelevancy. Click here to read the article

Call in number: 1-800-336-2225This Saturday on the program Allan Hoffenblum,publisher of The California Target Book and owner of Allan Hoffenblum & Associates, a political consulting firm based in Los Angeles, joins us to talk about two recent posts he penned in the Fox and Hounds Daily.

Some argue it’s enough to be “pure” in conservative principles. And that wavering from that is what has got us to this point of the brink of quasi-irrelevance, in the first place.

They equate outreach to women and minorities as a surrender of all principles of equality to political correctness and race and gender based preferences.

But some will argue that what leaders are doing, and not doing, now, in the name of “conservative principle,” is not conservative, but is in fact reactionary, self defeating and self destructive.

Liberty and freedom are on the line, and it is the 11th hour. The lines are open. Join us for hot talk radio, Saturday at 10AM PT on CRN, Channel 1

CRN Digital Talk Radio is now available in High Definition audio! Listen to CRN on your local cable or satellite provider, local radio affiliate, mobile device or at CRN! To see where CRN is available in your area click here.To request CRN Digital Talk Radio in your home or for advertising information, email info@CRNi.net.

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The status quo of education in the U.S. is destructive to our Nation, and to ignore this truth is to be numb, unconscious or in denial of reality.

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament."--A Nation At Risk - April 1983

Drug War Clock for Current Year

Police arrested an estimated 858,408 persons for cannabis violations in 2009. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent were charged with possession only.
Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation Your tax dollars at work--but for whom?

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The Gadfly

Dedicated to considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness… "to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth." --Plato on Socrates